Always One Step Behind
by Noodle-strand
Summary: Heather decides to dismiss any logical path through Silent Hill and instead explore at random. She's too sick of finding trouble with the true paths. However, her "friend" is only one step behind. Valtiel and Heather in later chapters.


**Obviously I do not own any characters or any of the concepts of Silent Hill. **

With each of her light steps bouncing echoes off the walls, Heather felt small and insignificant inside the rusted, narrow hallway of the Woodside apartments of the otherworld. The Alternate Apartments.

She didn't know why she had come here. Heather was so sick of following her instinct and ending up in even more grief and trouble that she had decided to just walk around town and try to find some other path. Breaking a decomposing lock had been easy and then all she had to do was stroll up to the door to enter the building.

The inside was damp, wet and instantly made her retch. However, after gathering her composure, she hastily switched on her flashlight and began to explore.

Right now she was in some sort of lobby area; it was cramped and the stairwell made it all the more so. One of the cult red, glowing symbols was appraising her across the landing. She didn't go near it. To her displeasure she found that, when examining a notice board to her left, the oh-so-handy map of the area had been coveted, leaving only a few inches of seemingly random lines to indicate rooms remaining pinned to the cork base.

"Great." She muttered softly to herself, scanning the lobby for any other helpful items. Behind the counter and with one heavy tap from her iron pipe, the drawers beneath popped open and inside she found bandages, morphine, aspirin and what looked like a metal doorknob.

She didn't know why she took it. Well, at least she tried to convince herself that it wasn't because of the curved symbols carved onto its front that had enticed her. She stopped suddenly and for a moment and just stood dumbly on the stairs, struggling to persuade herself that it wasn't for this reason.

It was at this abrupt lapse that she heard something behind her. Heather swivelled around as fast as she could without losing balanced and in the split second before she could stop herself she caught a glimpse of a sleek, red shape dart up the sides of the walls and disappear into the darkness above.

Knowing better, by now, to call out to see what the mysterious shape was, Heather could see no other option then to continue in her search of the Apartments.

The stairs uttered their final creak as she reached the second floor. The door opened easily and then she was inside the dingy corridor that led to a host of rooms. Hesitantly Heather tried the door directly opposite her.

Unlike her previous explorations, this door too opened and she entered the first room of the apartments. It reeked of blood.

Sure enough, walls were practically painted red by the stuff. It oozed off cabinets, formed large puddles on bed, coated the curtains and splashed the mirror in the corner. Quite simply, it was horrific.

However, there was no cause or consequence of the source of the blood to be seen and surely this much of it must have come from more than one person? Tentatively treading neatly through the soaked carpets, Heather crossed the room over to the dresser-table and mirror and flicked swiftly through some of the papers that were strewn there.

The first batch of the documents she couldn't read or distinguish any words as they had taken the full impact of the slaughter and some were so soggy they fell apart in her hands. Working her way down the pile Heather soon found some legible texts amongst them.

"The dawn of a new sunset is fast approaching…We must gather and pray for light…"

Heather detected the tell-tale hint of Claudia's minion's ramblings and continued reading but skipped the junk about Paradise. Unfortunately, apart from the brief discussion on Claudia and Silent Hill's cult, the rest of the text was all written in Latin.

Sighing she replaced the papers and in doing so noticed a metal mesh encompassing the front of one drawer. It looked like it fitted with the heavy door knob she had discovered earlier. Perhaps this was its purpose.

Curiosity overcoming doubt she pulled the metal tablet out of her rucksack and used it on the drawer. With the tablet in place she managed to turn it in its rusty core and with a loud snap and still louder click the drawer tumbled open.

Heather peered within. Nestled in its own black-velvet case was a foot long, square, iron bar. Along its length were the same engravings that decorated the metal key. Slowly squeezing the ceremonial bar out of its lining, Heather pulled it out and examined it fully.

A clanking sound startled her but peering down she saw that it was just the metal key falling out of the drawer. Frowning, she picked it up and wiped the bloodied face on her rucksack. At the back of the key; a hole, identical in size and shape to that of the bar.

Obviously, they combined and fitted together. What that accomplished Heather couldn't tell. She now had something that vaguely resembled a lever. She looked up into the mirror.

It was behind her.

Swinging madly with the new lever, she struck the creature across the face and knocked it across all the items piled upon a nearby table, shattering glass and screeching over cutlery, till it finally fell, dazed, on the floor. Breathing deeply, Heather walked over, holding the lever high above her head in both hands, towards the fallen monster.

It was the one that had followed her wherever she seemed to go. The one that constantly tracked her but at the same time never gave her the chance to attack. The one that appeared to give Claudia her whereabouts. Without faltering, Heather threw all her might into a downward blow onto the creature's twisting and twitching head.

A hard vibration coiled up the lever into her arms as the full velocity of her strike powered through the room. The hit was greeted by a crunching noise from the monster and Heather prepared to beat the monster again when it let out a small, strangled sob.

New, black blood streamed from the thing's face in a steady flow as it trembled in pain. The head had stopped twitching as it was sliced open by a sharp edge of the lever. With its sobs, Heather felt her own grief and pain pour back into existence and she fell to her knees in tears of her own. She missed Harry. She missed Harry, her father.

"You think you've got problems, you stupid thing!" Heather gasped and tried to stifle her melancholy. It was no use, she didn't know how she'd been holding her sorrow inside for so long but now that it had a chance it gushed out of her in overwhelming blasts.

The creature choked and then more blood trickled down its chin. It suddenly caught sight of her sitting so close to her and for a second, Heather thought that maybe it might attack her. Frantically she searched for her lever which had dropped from her hands as she collapsed. It was a few feet away, under the table. Cautiously, she gazed to the monster, her tears now silent.

**Hn, didn't know how to end it. Hope this was OK? Hope you enjoyed it too. Hope to do a sequel also. "Hoping" you may review? **


End file.
